Sex Work, Power, and the Weight of Survival

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MOVIE REVIEW
The Oldest Profession (Confidential: Secret Market)
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Genre: Drama, Erotica
Year Released: 1974, Film Movement Plus 2025
Runtime: 1h 23m
Director(s): Noburu Tanaka
Writer(s): Akio Ido
Cast: Meika Seri, Genshu Hanayagi, Shiro Yumemura, Moeko Ezawa, Junko Miyashita, Sakumi Hagiwara
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Where To Watch: premiering on VOD, leading digital outlets & Film Movement Plus on April 4, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: There’s a certain kind of movie that doesn’t try to grab your attention—it slowly pulls you into its characters until you’re trapped in its perspective. THE OLDEST PROFESSION fits that mold perfectly. Marketed under a label associated with erotica, this 1974 entry is anything but ordinary. It takes the studio-mandated requirements—frequent sex scenes, provocative settings—and flips them into something bolder, more unsettling. The result is less about desire and more about survival, with a story that digs into exploitation and social abandonment systems with a sharp, unflinching eye.

The plot follows Tome (Meika Seri), a young woman carving out her space in a system rigged against her. She goes independent rather than working under a manager—though independence here doesn’t mean empowerment, just a different kind of vulnerability. She’s stuck in a life defined by economic desperation, and her attempts to find her agency only highlight how little of it she has. Seri plays her with a steady cool. There’s no grand arc of redemption, no emotional monologues—just a person quietly adapting to a world that never asked what she wanted.

What gives THE OLDEST PROFESSION its weight is how it handles these characters—not as victims or heroes, but as people navigating their world and options. Tome’s relationship with her mother, also a sex worker, isn’t full of sentiment or reconciliation. It’s a competition shaped by age, bitterness, and resentment. Meanwhile, her bond with her brother carries discomfort more than tenderness, raising questions about responsibility, trauma, and the cost of emotional labor in a world that gives so little back.

Visually, the film embraces a raw, stripped-down style that leans into neorealist tradition. Shot largely on location in Osaka’s Nishinari district, the cinematography captures a version of Japan rarely shown onscreen. It’s not a background—it’s an environment with texture and presence.

This movie doesn’t embrace the eroticism that the title implies. Instead, it critiques it. The sex scenes aren’t framed to provoke desire—they highlight exhaustion, repetition, and emotional detachment. They’re blunt and bleak, designed to show the transactional nature of survival more than anything intimate. It’s a sly act of rebellion by director Noboru Tanaka, using the very expectations of the genre to deconstruct it from within.

Humor does exist here, though it’s not the kind that offers relief. It’s pitch-black, showing up in moments, simultaneously making you laugh and recoil. For instance, a sequence involving an inflatable doll is soaked in sadness and commentary. That’s the tone Tanaka balances throughout the film: absurdity laced with despair without ever falling into melodrama.

What sticks is how THE OLDEST PROFESSION resists being boxed in. The performances aren’t flashy, and the narrative doesn’t follow traditional expectations. There’s no climax, no resolution—just progression. The story doesn’t end because things are solved; it just stops because that’s all there is.

It also plays with cinema conventions in a way that’s worth appreciating. Rather than using technical skill for spectacle, it uses it for subversion. The handheld camerawork, the tight compositions, the contrast of shadows, and the overexposed daylight all add to a style that feels observational rather than manipulative. It’s not trying to make you think something specific; it’s just refusing to look away.

As a historical document, THE OLDEST PROFESSION sits at the crossroads of commercial exploitation and political defiance. It comes from a time when studios desperately tried to adapt to changing tastes, and directors like Tanaka found cracks in the system where they could input meaningful work. That tension—between market demand and urgency—gives the movie its edge.

The rating feels right because the film accomplishes much under tight restrictions but doesn’t fully escape them. Still, what it does well is done with intent. It’s a movie that never feels easy, and that’s what makes it so engaging. It leaves you thinking not about one character or scene but about systems, expectations, and how people survive through them.

You don’t walk away from THE OLDEST PROFESSION with your heart lifted or your questions answered. You walk away with your eyes open a little wider—sometimes, that’s the point.

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[photo courtesy of FILM MOVEMENT CLASSICS]

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